Read Online Monkey Wars by Richard Kurti - Free Book Online Page A

play a game where they imagined they were birds flying high above the city.
    “Close your eyes and picture what it would look like…the river flowing up and down…the great streets running in lines next to it…the smaller ones crossing them to make little boxes…the railway lines sprouting out the side of the river like the stalk of a giant fruit.
    “Now pretend that you’re a dot moving around the city. Got it? Well, the trick of navigation is to always have one eye in the sky looking down. So when you turn left, you have to move that little dot left; if you turn round and go back the way you came, that little dot has to bounce back as well.”
    Papina concentrated hard—it was certainly true that from the top of a tall tree everything looked different, but what happened if you went even higher? She tried to imagine the city as a pattern of lines and boxes; the image fluttered across her mind, but just as she was starting to pull it into focus it slipped away again, eluding her.
    Suddenly she heard fits of giggles. Papina snapped open her eyes to see everyone laughing at Honeydew, the youngest monkey in the class, who had closed her eyes and promptly fallen fast asleep.
    “Honeydew, you really should learn to relax more,” Twitcher said with a wry smile.
    Everyone laughed, and the noise woke Honeydew with a start. “What? Is it lunchtime?” she said in a dazed voice.
    Now that food had been mentioned, Twitcher knew it would be impossible to regain the youngsters’ concentration, so he dismissed the class. As the monkeys rushed out, though, Papina hung back.
    Twitcher smiled at her. “Do you think it was too difficult for them? Some monkeys just can’t get above street level.”
    “It was starting to make sense,” Papina said thoughtfully, “but it’s going to take a bit of practice.”
    “Once you get it, there’s no turning back. You just do it all the time, without thinking.”
    “Twitcher, I was wondering…from the bird’s eye, looking down, where would the old cemetery be?”
    Twitcher hesitated. He knew from long experience that answering these questions was like stirring up a bees’ nest of trouble.
    “You don’t need to know that, Papina. It was from another life.”
    “But I
want
to know,” she insisted.
    “Have you spoken to your mother about this?”
    “She won’t talk about the cemetery.”
    “She’s got good reasons.”
    “I have to know what really happened to my father. I was too young to remember much, but if I go back, maybe…”
    Twitcher shook his head. “You can’t go back. Not ever. It’s too dangerous. The langur have taken the cemetery for themselves.”
    “Well that’s too bad. I’ve already made up my mind,” she replied defiantly. Then, softening it with a charming smile, she added, “I just need your help to tell me how to get there.”
    Twitcher studied Papina. He’d always had a soft spot for her, ever since he first saw her in the dump in the slums, dodging the jaws of the python. Many young monkeys would have fallen to pieces, but she had steeled herself and outwitted death. Twitcher thought she had real courage, not something many monkeys had, and he did not want to be the one to crush her spirit.
    “Well…,” he said finally, “I suppose it wouldn’t be very responsible of me to let you go roaming the streets on your own now, would it?”
    Papina’s face lit up with joy and she threw her arms around him. “Thank you, Twitcher! I knew you’d help.”
    —
    Three nights later they put their plan into action. During the day Papina collected chamomile pollen from an herb garden on a nearby balcony; she took it back and secretly mixed it with her group’s food, careful to avoid eating any herself because chamomile was a sedative. As the moon rose, she watched her mother and the others all drift off into a deep, drugged sleep; then she crept away to meet Twitcher and they set off into the tangle of city streets.
    It was the first time Papina had